Sometimes I think on men of great estate
Who would, of an evening late
Gaze over the countryside
And wonder whether democracy’s rising tide
Would bring civilisation to an end.

I can not pretend
That there was not in such men
A desire for their privilege to survive
Democracy’s rising tide.
Yet I regret
The idea that any fool
May rule
And I feel in my heart
That democracy and mobocracy
Are sometimes not that far apart